Mystery Shopping at the Grocery Store

Mystery shopping at the grocery store is a good way to buy groceries. I won't say which grocery store chains I mystery shops, but they are some of the larger known chains. Right now I have two chains that I have shopped quite a deal. The payment is usually $5.00 but the reimbursement for the groceries ranges from $5-$10.

 

You may be wondering why I get so excited about these shops. Well, I completed five of these shops this week and my partner has done three.  This makes for $72 of paid groceries. This helps with our grocery budget and we get paid to go shopping. I have two more shops this weekend which will give us $10 more in groceries and my partner is out doing one now for another $9 in reimbursement. We always have food or other items from the store we need and sometimes we splurge and buy something we normally wouldn't buy. The amount we are reimbursed is not reported to the IRS as income and that helps out too. I like getting "paid" this way! The fee that I am paid is reported to the IRS, but I also get to write off the mileage.

 

There are restrictions on the dates you can shop and also on the times, but those are manageable. The input is not too bad and I come home with groceries! Oh and last night I got an incentive to complete a mystery shop....$26 extra in fees to go to the grocery store....oh yea, I'll do that!

What to Buy?

For the majority of the mystery shops I do at gas stations and office supply stores, I have to make a small purchase to provide to the mystery shopping company that I was actually there. This reimbursement is usually right around $1.00 and can go up to $2.00. I don't like to spend much more than what I am reimbursed for, because then I "lose" money. The average fee/pay I receive for a gas station is $10 and for an office supply shop $7.  My partner also mystery shops, so she is always buy things too.

 

So, what do we buy......we buy lots of soft drinks! I can usually find can drinks at gas stations for 75-95 cents. Other times I buy some candy or chocolate milk for the boys. I can usually find some cheap pens or pencils at an office supply shop, but then I end up with too many of those. I usually look in the $1.00 area and stock up on some teacher gifts.

 

We stock pile the soft drinks in the garage so the boys don't just guzzle them. For the last month, we have saved them for Elijah's birthday party this weekend and then we will save them for Jacob's graduation party. My mom also mystery shops and bought a LOT of candy to give us to give to our kids (my boys and nieces and nephews) for Easter. Once we are done with the parties, we will keep the drinks in the garage to drink through then summer. I guess we will stock pile them for Jacob when he goes off to college next year!

Update!

It has been a few months since I posted. Graduate school kept me busy up until around Thanksgiving, because I am an over achiever and had all of my assignments done! I then started doing more shops since the next semester would be starting in January.

I am currently doing fast food and gas shops. I did a LOT of shops during December, because we were off for two weeks for the Christmas Break. I will be slowing down again since my classes start back up on Wednesday.

We had an ice storm back on Dec. 6th and all of my shops had to be reschedules. I think most North Texas was iced in for four days. You could really tell by looking at shops online, because dates started getting extended way past the usual dates. One company even sent out an email stating that we should NOT cancel shops but rather reschedule and if we had problems to contact them directly. It was the first time I had to reschedule so many shops at once!

Out of Practice

As I posted earlier, I have slowed down on the shops a great deal. However, I am now a month ahead in both classes and working on projects that aren't due for another few weeks, so I have been taking a few more shops. It doesn't hurt that many of the gas stations shops are back! I had six shops yesterday, and I feel SO out of practice. It took 2 1/2 hours to complete the shops(drive time included) and then another 2 hours to complete all of the input. I haven't done that many shops since August, and I was mentally tired at the end of it all! It's not that the shops are hard to do, but all of the driving and then input takes a lot of time!

I plan on continuing to do shops. Child support may stop for a few weeks due to ex being between jobs, so I feel like I have to keep it up on the weekends so I have the money to pay the bills!

Slowing Down!

I just went back to work this past week as a teacher! I am also starting graduate school online on Monday! With all of this going on, I have decided to SLOW down on mystery shopping. I have signed up for some gas stations for September and October, but I generally about 60 of these and this time I am only doing 28. These just pay too well and I get free gas!

I am going to ONLY sign up for shops that pay really well OR are in town. Once graduate school gets going, I will have a better idea of how much I can handle. I am hoping to put this money away for Christmas!

It hasn't been easy to give up mystery shopping. The "hunt" for shops can almost become an addiction. However, I think I will have plenty to do with my partner,  kids, grad school, my full time job and LIFE!

Keep That Paperwork

It is very important that you keep your mystery shopping paperwork for several months after you have finished a shop. You need to keep the questionnaire and the receipt! Just yesterday, I had two inquiries on two different shops I had completed. One had been done over this past weekend. I found the paperwork and answered the follow up questions they sent me. The other one had been done back in early July, and again, I found the paperwork and answered the questions. This doesn't happen to often, but when it does, you want to have that paperwork. I do way too many shops, to keep all of that information in my head!

Summer is a Busy Time!

The summer is one of the busiest times for me as a mystery shopper. I am a school teacher, so during the school year I usually only shop on the weekends. I get the occasional dinner shop during the week, but other than that it is all weekend shopping. I also keep busy during the holidays during the school year, but summer is my busiest time.

I spent the first week that I had off doing two gas shops a night for five nights in a row. I also spent two days in East Texas doing gas stations. Right now, I am getting phone calls offering me incentives to do fast food shops. Jacob has finally grown tired of fast food! I did go out of town for six days, so no shops during that time period, but I came home to more night time shops. I still have two more night time gas stations to do in the next few days.

I have printed me a calendar for this month and next month, and actually blocked out several days that I WON'T work. I would actually like to spend some time with the boys and maybe get in a few movies. I also think my honey would like me to spend some time with her!

I am hoping to try a few new companies if possible. One company I work for has had a huge decrease in shops. I am not sure why, but there just aren't that many shops with them. Hopefully things will pick up and before you know it, I'll be back in school!

Hot Spots

A few months ago I signed up for a Hot Spot on my iPhone. I figured if it was avaiable, why not get it and use it. We could then connect our iPads to the internet using the hot spot. I have used it with my iPad a lot, when we are out and about, but it is never really been NEEDED. Well, yesterday our electricity went out and when it came back on, our FIOS TV and internet would not connect. I called Verizon and talked to a really nice guy who walked me through some trouble shooting ideas. Nothing worked and a technician is coming some time today.

Meanwhile, I had one shop to input and three more shops to do. I rescheduled one of them but still had two more to do. Before leaving, I turned on that hot spot and made sure it would connect my comoputer to the internet. I could not get it to connect to my desk top computer, but it would connect to my laptop. I went and did my two shops and then came home and was able to do the input. It is a bit of a hassle, because I scanned my receipts on my desk top computer and then saved the scans to a USB thumb drive and then moved them to the laptop. I can deal with that hassle as long as I can input my shops.

I am now sitting at home waiting for a technician who will come some time today before 9PM! Elijah is watching CARS 2 on the DVD player and maybe I will get some housekeeping done! I am keeping my phone handy though so I don't miss that technician's phone call!

You Don't Have to Take Every Shop!

I have been mystery shopping for a bit over two years now. I work for seven different mystery shopping companies. When I first started, I took just about any shop I could get. Since the, I have learned to pick and choose. I don't do bank shops any more. They are boring and tedious. They can also take up a lot of my time on a weekend, and that keeps me from doing other shops.

I like doing the food shops, especially at the restaurants that I really like. In fact, I am getting three times the pay to go to one of my favorite places to eat tomorrow night, plus my meal is paid for. I have learned to read the fine print before taking a shop. Sometimes the pay just isn't very good or there is no reimbursement. Sometimes the shop is just too far away.

We are going out of town in a few weeks, so I just blocked off my calendar for no shops on that weekend. That is the best thing about mystery shopping....I can work as much or as little as I want. The second best thing is I get to pick and choose the shops I want.

Answer the Phone

I have learned that sometimes I just have to answer my cell phone, even if I don't know who is calling. It just may be a scheduler at the other end of the phone ready to offer you an incentive to do a shop! Just this morning, I was getting out of the shower when my cell phone rang. I didn't know the number, and I figured it was a mystery shopping company! I almost didn't answer it, because I wasn't sure I wanted more shops, but I thought "YOU can always say no!" I am glad I answered it, because it was from one of the new companies I signed up for. The scheduler offered me three retail shops that are $10 each, with no purchase requirements. I had signed up for them about a week ago, but hadn't been assigned them. I gladly took them and she put them on my schedule board!

I got another phone call today from another company I work for, and got another gas station for next week and was cleared to try some other shops that they have. Sometimes, you just have to take a chance and answer the phone! You never know who might be on the other end!

Searching for Shops

There are a few times a year when it seems that shops just SLOW down. By slow down, I mean, there just aren't that many shops. I have been pretty busy for the first part of this month, but have just a handful of shops after the 15th. It seems to be this way with all of the mystery shopping companies I work for. I am hoping that the gas station shops show up again at the end of this month, but you just never know. I have been off of work this week because of Spring Break, and wanted to work a bit less, but a few more shops would have been nice! Just remember, with mystery shopping, you can only get shops when they are there. There are times when the shops just aren't there!

Incentives!

An incentive in mystery shopping, is when extra money is offered to complete a shop. One company I work for, offers these on a regular basis and it can be as little as $2.00 extra to do a shop to $40 to do the shop.

Several things can impact the size of the incentive:

• The distance the shop is from your home.
• The time frame of the shop. If the company has a deadline, they want to get it done!
• The size of the city where the shop is located--if it a small town in the middle of no where, odds are that there are not too many shoppers in the area.

There is one large company that I work for that RARELY offers incentives and if they do, it is just a dollar or two. However, they sent an email out recently stating they NEEDED shops done and to give them a call. They were even offering incentives. Well, I looked and there were five shops within an hours drive from me, in an area that I know well. I called and asked about doing them and asked about the incentive. The associate asked me how much I wanted for each shop and I said $5.00 extra. She put me on hold and came back that they would give me $5.00 extra for each shop. This meant a total of $25 in incentive. The actual shop pays $10 plus around $9 in reimbursement. Just the incentive and fee alone are $75! Needless to say, I took the shops!

I once got $35 in incentive to do ONE fast food shop that was 45 minutes away. I took it and found a few more shops to do along the way! Once you sign up with a company, start looking to see if they offer incentives. They can really add to your paycheck.

Calendar--Keeping Track of Shops

I keep track of all of my shops using a calendar on my computer. I color code each shop based on which company I have scheduled with. This ensures I don't overbook myself for certain companies that restrict the number of shops you can do in one day. It also keeps me from overbooking myself. I also keep a paper calendar in my car, so if I am out and about and shops come out, I can schedule the shops I want.

You never know when shops will come out. There is usually a pattern to the month on when shops are released, but you just never know. I checked shops early today and then within an hour checked again and some grocery shops were out. I picked up four shops for next month. I was out with the boys getting hair cuts  yesterday when I checked shops on my iPhone and there were Internet shops that were out. Scheduling shops can become a full time job! I also have to make sure I don't schedule too many fast food shops for the same day or for the same time period!

I have completed one shop with one of the new companies and found it easy to do the input. The shops has been cleared to be paid and I should get paid for it next month. I have signed up for my first shop with the second new company, but I won't do a shop for them until next month! I am trying NOT to overbook myself for the week of Spring Break! This is another important reason to keep a calendar. If I have meetings or other things that come up on a weekend, I make sure I block those dates out so I don't schedule any shops!

Whatever you decide to do, make sure you have a way to keep track of your shops.

Two New Companies

I signed up with two new mystery shopping companies this weekend. I have one shop tomorrow with one of them and am looking forward to it. It is always interesting to start with a new company and figure out how things work. I have not found anything that I can do with the other company, due to date and time restrictions. However, I did discover that they mystery shop MY TOTALLY favorite doughnut shop! OH MY OH MY. Anyone who really knows me will know what doughnut shop this is. I grew up on these in Mobile, AL!

I can't wait to do one of these shops. Right now, the only opportunity is a Monday-Friday morning shop that I can't do because of work. I'll just have to be patient and wait until another opportunity presents itself!

Where to Start?

So, how do you get started in mystery shopping? I had a friend who was a shopper and she got me started. It is really important to find a legitimate company. Here is a link to a list of mystery shopping companies. http://volition.com/mystery.html  There is a lot of other good information here.

Whenever I start with a new company, I start off slow. I do two to three shops and then wait to be paid. I have only had one bad experience with a company that did not pay me. After several emails, I finally got paid, but I decided I would NOT work with that company any more. It is also a good idea to start slowly with shops, so you don't overbook yourself. Most companies will let you book as many shops as you want, but a few have rules about shops. One company I work for only allows you to do four shops a day. Another company only allows you to do two shops a day, but if you call they may assign you a few more shops.

It is important to know how you will get paid. I work for five different companies and am paid in three different ways. The company either sends me a check, does a direct deposit, or pays by PayPal. Some companies only pay once a month, others every two weeks and then other twice a month.

I just signed up with a new company and am hoping to find some variety in the shops, but I may not find anything I like. Right now I don't see any shops that interest me, but I'll keep checking and see what happens!

Scheduling Shops

My partner and I are always checking each companies web site to see if there are new shops. We text each other when we see new shops. After a while you begin to learn the rhythm of a company. We know that each month around the 20th one company comes out with all of its Fast Food shops for the next month. Notice, I said AROUND the 20th....because we just never know. We know another company releases its gas shops each quarter and we begin to start looking for them, but we never know the exact date they will come out.

We check each website at last 4-5 times daily. I can't always check them while I am at work, so she keeps an eye on them. We go days with no new releases. They always seem to come out in the later afternoon or early evening hours.  Sometimes I check a company's site and am shocked to see a LONG list of shops available!

Sometimes in my haste to get a shop, I sign up for one I didn't mean to just by clicking on the wrong shop. For one company, this is not a big issue. I can cancel it all on my own. I can also reschedule a shop with this company on my own. Other companies require that you email them to ask them to remove or reschedule a shop. This isn't usually a problem and they will do it, but is more of a hassle than just being able to do it yourself.

I can sign up for as many or as few shops as I want for a weekend. I tend to work more over the holidays when I have more time during the week. I like having the summer off, when I can really spread out the shops.

I am so glad that my partner was around to help me learn the skills I would need to become a good mystery shopper!

Supplies You Will Need

I have written about the skills needed to be a mystery shopper, so now I am going to give you a list of supplies you may need to mystery shop.

• pens, pens and always another pen. I never seemed to have one in my car when I need one, so I bought a large box of pens and put them in my glove box.
• clipboard--truly a must have. When you are sitting in your car completing your input form you need it to write on. You also need it when walking around gas stations completing the form.
• pocket folder--it doesn't have to be a pocket folder, but something to keep all of your forms in for the day.
• something for receipts--I like to use a clear zip plastic envelope type thing. It's official name is a poly zip check envelope. Comes in handy!
• digital camera--truly a must have when doing audits. You can sometimes use your camera phone for small jobs, but you really need a camera for the larger ones.
• printer/scanner--again, a must have. I scan all of my receipts to send electronically in to verify my shops. I sometimes have to scan other forms. I got by with an ink jet printer for a while, but now use a laser jet printer for my shops.
• paper--well of course you need paper...duh! YOU NEED A LOT of paper! Take advantage of office supply stores that offer you rebates and/or rewards when buying paper.
• clips--paper clips to the large black clips that can hold a LARGE stack of paper...get clips.
• stapler--you need a good stapler and a LOT of staples. First you staple the input sheets together and then once you completed the shop you staple the receipt to your input sheets. This way if there is a problem you have the receipt and the input forms together.
• GPS--I wrote a whole blog on this, but I wanted to mention it again. A MUST HAVE!
• Stopwatch--most cell phones now have some kind of timing device or at least an app you can purchase to act as a stopwatch, but this is also a MUST HAVE.
• calendar--OK it doesn't have to be a calendar, but you better have some way of keeping up with your shops. I have shops scheduled through the middle of February right now. Before I even schedule a new shop, I look to see what is already on my calendar. I don't want to overbook myself, or be driving from one side of town to the other. I try to cluster my shops together by city when I can!
• Good computer--you need a good computer and good computer skills. Organize your documents on your hard drive into folders.
• File cabinet--again, it doesn't have to be a file cabinet. I use a drawer on my desk that holds files, but someway to organize the shops you have printed.

This should be a good start! I am sure something else will come to mind. Good luck, if you decide to become a mystery shopper. Keep a list of your expenses, you can write them off on your income taxes.

Those Darn Directions!

I have blogged about how important it is to READ the directions to a shop. If you make a mistake and can't correct it, you may not get paid. Today I had two shops that were at a fast food shop. I had to take pictures at this shop and thought I had them all. I had printed the questionnaire and quickly read the directions at home. There were six reminders for six different pictures in the questionnaire. I was able to carry it with me because this was a revealed shop. However, there were three pictures that weren't mentioned in the questionnaire, but they were stated in the directions. I noticed then when I was completing the input online. Elijah and I tore out of here at 4:45 to run to these two places and TAKE these pictures. OH MY! The sun was going down and some of the pictures were outside. We made it in time, but oh my, was I worried. I had completed the shops around 11:30 this morning, but had baked and taken care of some things at home, so I didn't even start the input until 4:30. Let's just say, I will be more careful with those directions!

Death of a Printer!

If you remember, I posted back in February of this year that my step mom gave us a laser printer. We saved a great deal of money with this laser printer. We did at least 15,000 prints on this thing. I recently bought a new drum for it, because even with a new toner cartridge the print was very light. However, after only a few days with the new drum, the printer started making some funny noises. It finally just stopped printing. I wrote the company an email and they sent a new drum, but it also wouldn't work. My partner and I came to the conclusion that the printer had finally come to its end.  We did some research and decided that we would each by a new Brother laser printer that was on sale for $79. Whenever she had wanted to print using our other laser printer, she would have to bring her laptop into the den to print. Now we will each have our own laser printer and can print all we want!

I had thought about buying a HP Office jet inkjet printer, but decided I didn't need something like that. My little HP(knock on wood) scanner/printer is working just fine. I use it mostly to scan and sometimes to print things in color.

I can also write this new printer off on my income taxes! Before purchasing the new laser jet printer, we checked to see how much the toner cartridges and replacement drum would be. We found them for a good price on line and will order them online rather than purchase them at the store!

New Shops

I haven't had much to post lately! I am keeping busy with my mystery shopping still. Going back to work has slowed me down quite a bit, since I can only shop on the weekends! However, Thanksgiving is coming up next month and I get a whole week off! Just today, one of the companies came out with a new set of shops. They start on the 17th and are daily until the first weekend in December. I have taken an average three shops a day over the Thanksgiving break and on the weekends. They pay $8 and it looks to be a 10 minute shop. There is only one page of input and you don't even have to interact with an employee!!! I took 21 shops!

I have promised myself to slow down on my mystery shopping. The first weekend of the month is usually my busiest weekend, just because of how the shops come out. Now you may be saying to yourself, YOU just took 21 shops. Well, those shops are over 10 days! As the month goes on, I block out certain days to take either NO shops or very few shops. I have started telling myself NO, when I start thinking over shops I might want to take. I also make sure I check my calendar before accepting new shops, this keeps me from over booking myself!

I am hoping that when Christmas break comes, I can pick up some extra shops. I do plan on doing a LOT of baking though, so I will block off days that I won't shop! This is also true for the weekends in December, since I like to bake for people at work to give out gifts!

I will be busy this weekend though! I have ten shops on Saturday and nine on Sunday! I do like those paychecks though and many of the shops this weekend I get reimbursed for the gas I purchase. WOOHOO!